The ever changing public taste has required manufacturers of tuft carpeting to produce a large variety of multi-colored patterns on carpeting and other pile fabrics. Such multi-colored effects can be in a predetermined pattern or in a non-repetitive color pattern. Various methods have been proposed to accomplish this result.
In tufted carpets, many methods are available in the prior art for varying the pile height of an individual loop or loop later cut for cut pile. In the most basic form of the case of a loop pile carpet, the yarn fed to the machine is suddenly red uced in length. Since the machine has been set to produce a loop of a given height, the only way for the machine to complete its cycle is to pull back yarn from the previous loop. Thus, by alternating the full loop rate of yarn feed with a lower low loop rate of yarn feed, two heights of loops can be produced. When assembled in the carpet, the high and low loops in adjacent warped ends of pile yarn combine to give areas of pattern demarcated by high or low loop areas.
When there are two rows of high loops adjacent to a center row of low loops, the high loops will spread over the low loops and only the high loops will be on the surface of the carpet. Thus, if a carpet was made of alternating warped pile yarns of red and blue yarns using a design which controlled the loop heights, it is possible to produce areas containing low red - low blue loops, high red - low blue loops, high blue - low red loops, and high blue - high red loops. The low red - low blue and high red - high blue areas would appear purplish, the high red - low blue would appear red since the blue color would be hidden, and the high blue - low red would be blue since the red yarn would be hidden.
The patterned devices which are used to regulate the yarn feed to loop pile machines are multi feed rolls, slats and scrolls. Most machines available on the market provide a choice of three pile heights, which can be set to give a chosen difference.
The carpet industry basically dyes carpet or yarn by two broad techniques. The first is space dyeing in which the carpet or yarn within a given area or space is dyed and a variety of space dyeing technqiues are available. The other basic technique is a splattering technqiue where drops of color are sprinkled or splattered on the carpet or yarn to provide a multi-hued effect. Tak dyeing is an example of such latter technique. The splattering techniques are generally less expensive and more economical than space dyeing techniques.
It is the object of this invention to provide a method of making a patterned, multi-colored carpet in which a wide variety of patterns and a wide variety of multi-hued effects can be achieved easily and economically. This and other objects of the invention will become apparent to those skilled in the art following the detailed description.